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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A nice, but optional, addition to the Mage line, March 23, 2006
This review is from: Mage Legacies the Sublime (Mage the Awakening) (Hardcover)
Legacies: the Sublime is the first collection of Legacies published for Mage: the Awakening. It serves the same purpose as the Bloodlines and Lodges books for Vampire and Werewolf, respectively. In short, it gives players and Storytellers examples of magical societies that characters might belong to, as well as the powers they receive, thereby presenting even more options for characters (beyond the default choices of Path and Order). This book expands on the idea of Legacies as presented in the back of the core Mage book, including an appendix on how to create one's own Legacy.
Since this product is hardly necessary to enjoy a good game of Mage, the deciding factor will be whether the 13 Legacies presented herein interest you, either as a player or a Storyteller. I find them to be generally well done, although I'm not likely to ever use them all. Highlights include:
The Clavicularius - Goetic sorcerers who battle their inner demons on the path to self-mastery.
The Daoine - Enchanters inspired by fairy tales, they use Fate magic to reward the just and punish the wicked.
The Fallen Pillar - Ascetic shamans who attempt to transcend the limitations of the flesh.
The Sodality of the Tor - An Old-World witch cult, the "Spiral Walkers" channel personal divinity by means of ecstatic rites.
The Transhuman Engineers - They believe their use of technomagic will help humanity "progress" to the next level of evolution.
The Cult of the Doomsday Clock - Creepy as hell. Apocalyptic cult with ties to dark things... Would make good antagonists.
Aside from the specific legacies presented, the book is also useful as an example of how much variation exists among Mages of the same Path. If players or Storytellers are in a rut and can't think outside the box of what's presented in the core book, Legacies: the Sublime ought to fix that. In summary, it's one of those books you don't really need but will probably find cool and useful.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HOW TO CRAFT YOUR SOUL, January 27, 2007
This review is from: Mage Legacies the Sublime (Mage the Awakening) (Hardcover)
LEGACIES THE SUBLIME is a supplement for MAGE: THE AWAKENING, a game set in the World of Darkness. Mages are able to craft their souls, a process that allows them to gain magical abilities that don't invoke Paradox, perform rituals that gain them mana when away from hallows, and learn some Arcana as if it were on their path. If a mage passes on the secret to crafting souls on to apprentices, a Legacy may develop. These are some significant powers, and the cost (mechanically) is to pass a tithe of the character's XP onto their mentor. There are other costs too, sometimes servitude to the group or significant bodily changes.
How useful is LEGACIES? Well, I would compare it to BLOODLINES for Vampire. When I first heard of a whole book of bloodlines, I thouhgt it would be rather silly. A typical city holds maybe 20 vampires, with very few new ones passing through. What is the likelihood of even one belonging to a bloodline, let alone getting the use of a whole book of them? And given the secretive nature of vampires and the difficulty of traveling from city to city, I imagine that few vampires can make use of them. In contrast, every mage can join a legacy. If a character wants to travel to Glastonbury to meet the last surviving mentor of the Sodality of Tor, he or she can. There are journals and records of Legacies, plus mages travel from city to city, so it is easy for mages to find a legacy. Thus, I view LEGACIES as a big book of plot devices.
LEGACIES also fills some parameter space that the corebook has left empty, which is "What do Mages do with their time?" You can do anything you can imagine, provided no one is watching. Sometimes it's hard to be creative with no boundaries. LEGACIES gives characters something to do; pursue the membership in secret orders and later the day-to-day activites that make up that group. I find that a Legacy feels more like the social groups of Vampire (lance Sanctum, Carthians, etc.) than the Mage orders do, as I find them ill-defined with little focus on immediate goals. So I think this book is both interesting and practical from both a player and a storyteller's viewpoint.
Each legacy has an entry of about 10 pages, describing what the legacy does, how it originated (or what they want you to think), and initiation ceremonies. It states who can join, what the attainments (magical abilites) are, and the oblations that generate mana.
Here's the list of Legacies:
Clavicularius
Daksha
Daoine
The Fallen Pillar
The House of Ariadne
The Pygmalian Society
The Scions of God
The Sodality of the Tor
Stone Scribes
Threnodists
Transhuman Engineers
The Cult of the Doomsday Clock
The Fangs of Mara
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0 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All the info you need, March 8, 2006
This review is from: Mage Legacies the Sublime (Mage the Awakening) (Hardcover)
This book gives you a lot of info to help you really get detailed in your character developement.
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